A Manual of American Literature

by Unknown

I. THE HISTORIANS

Early Dearth of Good Writers.—Among the consciously useful forms of literature there is none in which, by common consent, American men of letters have so uniformly distinguished themselves as in history. Bradford and Winthrop in the seventeenth century are as conspicuous among their countrymen and as respectable before the world as Prescott and Parkman in the nineteenth. Prince and Stith are as minutely conscientious—and almost as dull—as the most scientific of modern students; and Hutchinson, when judged by the prevailing standards of his own times, will be found not less diligent or judicious than Adams and Rhodes are thought to-day. Indeed, there is in our literature but one period destitute of historians of merit, and that period falls in the years immediately after the Revolution, precisely in the years when we should most expect historical writing to flourish; for those last years of the eighteenth century seem, as we look back upon them, to be full of encouragement for national pride. In 1781, Lord Cornwallis had surrendered at Yorktown. In 1783, King George acknowledged the independence of his rebellious subjects in America. Under a constitution since renowned, they soon instituted for themselves a federal government upon a continental scale. The prediction of Jefferson’s Declaration seemed to be justified. The United States were ready “to assume among the powers of the earth that separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them.”

Popular revolutions such as this have often been followed by a period of great literary fruitfulness, particularly in history. So it proved in Holland, in France, in Italy. But in America nothing of the sort occurred. The twenty-five years after Yorktown, barren in literature of every kind, are exceptionally devoid of historical writers who deal with large subjects in a large way. There were, of course, narratives of the war by participants and panegyrists. Such were David Ramsay’s “History of the American Revolution” (1789), Mrs. Mercy Warren’s “Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution” (1805), and the “History of the American Revolution” which appeared in 1819 under the name of Paul Allen. But none of these works shows largeness of view, and none is distinguished by literary qualities. They serve a good purpose, however, in reflecting the feeling of the Revolution. This is particularly true of Mrs. Warren’s book. She was a sister of James Otis, whose argument against the writs of assistance in 1761 marks the beginning of the Revolutionary agitation, and the wife of General Joseph Warren, who fell on Bunker Hill; and her intimacy with these and other New England patriots lends a certain representative value to her forgotten discursiveness. A similar value attaches also to the more readable, but not less bitter “Life of James Otis, containing Notices of Contemporary Characters and Events,” written by William Tudor; likewise, though in a less degree, to several other early biographies of Revolutionary worthies, among which the most weighty is the “Life of George Washington,” in five volumes (1804–1807), based upon his original papers and compiled by his fellow-Virginian John Marshall, afterwards famous as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. For students of American history, this is a useful book, such as a man of Marshall’s ability could not fail to produce when dealing with subjects with which he was thoroughly familiar and in which he was deeply interested. But it is hastily written, far too long, and, save for its partisanship, altogether colourless. Nevertheless, it occupies a relatively high rank among its coevals, for, taken all in all, American writers on national history in the years 1780–1820 are few and weak.

Causes of this Inferiority.—In explanation of this circumstance various conjectures have been advanced. Indubitably, the proscription of the Loyalists after the war deprived the thirteen States of wealth and intelligence which might otherwise have afforded to American literature an American support. But the effect upon letters of that social loss is easily exaggerated. The promptness with which serious English books were reprinted in America, even in the years when, as Goodrich discovered, it was “positively injurious to the commercial credit of a bookseller to undertake American works,” proves sufficiently that a reading public still remained. Another reason why, in the earlier years of our national life, there were few historians, may be found in the exaggerated value which most Americans then set upon certain abstract and therefore absolute theories in politics. Among the leaders of the Anti-Federalist or Democratic party, especially, a sort of political orthodoxy grew up. Theirs became a party with a creed, but without a programme. In the Southern States, they developed, in defence of their principles, an extensive literature of political and economic theory, far surpassing in variety of argument, subtlety of reasoning, and clearness of exposition anything that the North could show. But throughout it all, they appealed for support to the unchanging text of written constitutions, or to the immemorial prescriptions of natural law; upon history they looked as a tedious tale of ignorance and error. The Federalists, on the other hand, like the Whigs and the Republicans who succeeded them, were a party rather of measures than of principles. For their practical aims, a knowledge of human experience was serviceable. They inclined, therefore, to historical studies, and it is in New England, where their hold had been strongest, that the most significant of American historians at length appear. But even the stoutest Federalist among the contemporaries of Jefferson could discern in the recent experience of the nation at large little to stimulate patriotic ardour. In the estimation of men as yet unaccustomed to “think continentally,” the new government had brought few blessings: its burdens seemed innumerable. Taxes were high. Money was bad, and scarce as well. The Revolution had loosened the bonds of traditional authority, and internal disorder was rife. The mutual obligations assumed by England and by the United States at the Peace of 1783 were disregarded on both sides; and a new treaty, whose stipulations the vast majority of Americans deemed humiliating to themselves and dishonourable towards their French allies, served chiefly to prolong internal dissensions by introducing as an unwelcome issue in American politics the conflicting sympathies of the Federalists with England and of the Democrats with France. What wonder, then, that those who concerned themselves with the history of America at all turned from the Union to their several States, each of which, in their view, had been made separately sovereign by the events of the Revolution. Their temper is well expressed by the title of David Ramsay’s “History of the Revolution of South Carolina from a British Province to an Independent State” (1785). Ramsay’s “South Carolina” was soon followed by Belknap’s “New Hampshire” (1784–92), Proud’s “Pennsylvania” (1797), Minot’s “Continuation of the History [Hutchinson’s] of Massachusetts” (1798), Burke’s “Virginia” (1804), Williamson’s “North Carolina” (1812), and Trumbull’s “Connecticut” (1818). Among these books, Belknap’s justly holds the highest rank. Its style is vigorous and flexible, and in the opinion of de Tocqueville, “the reader of Belknap will find more general ideas and more strength of thought than are to be met with in other American historians” of the same period.

Washington Irving.—The life of Washington Irving as a man of letters is followed elsewhere in this volume; but no account of American historical writers, however slight, can omit his name. In the more laborious paths of the historian’s vocation he seldom walked. Research was foreign to his temperament, and in his histories references to authorities are few. He makes no pretence of disclosing new facts, or even of suggesting new theories concerning facts already known. But “the picturesque distances of earth’s space and the romantic remoteness of history” kindled his imagination, and his travels, which were extended for an American of his day, produced enduring results in a series of books dealing with the countries, and in part with the history of the countries, which he visited. One reason for his assuming the duties, not over-serious, of an attaché of the American legation in Madrid was Minister Everett’s suggestion that he make an English version of the matter relating to America in Navarrete’s work on the voyages and discoveries of the Spanish at the end of the fifteenth century, which had then been recently published. This project presently expanded into Irving’s “Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus, to which are added Those of his Companions” (1828). It was followed in the next year by “The Conquest of Granada,” and in 1832 by “Tales of the Alhambra.” Returning to America, Irving travelled extensively west of the Mississippi, and presently published his “Astoria” (1836) and “The Adventures of Captain Bonneville” (1837). Of these books, which, with an unimportant “Life of Mahomet and his Successors” (1849) and a five-volume “Life of Washington” (1855–59), constitute Irving’s historical writings, the “Columbus” is justly the most esteemed. It gained for its author the gold medal of the Royal Society of Literature and the Oxford degree of D.C.L. And not without reason, for it embodies, in a skilful narrative, not merely the substance of Navarrete’s documents, which Irving rendered with fidelity into excellent English, but also the results of other studies which were, for him, exceptionally thorough. Modern criticism has been very busy with the life of Columbus since Irving wrote. The narratives of Ferdinand Columbus and of Las Casas, upon which he largely relied, have been somewhat discredited, and the character of the discoverer himself has not altogether escaped. Nor can it be denied that Irving’s lively fancy led him to embellish his account of certain dramatic passages in the life of Columbus with details which, while not improbable in themselves, are unsupported by documentary or other direct evidence. But the attempt of some subsequent writers, and notably of Irving’s countryman Winsor, to discredit him on that account has been carried beyond reason. Irving’s narrative of facts in the “Columbus” is conscientiously based upon primary sources; and his judgments, though occasionally over-indulgent of his hero, are in general sound. Columbus may not have been in all respects such a man as Irving represents him, but it is, at least, ennobling for the reader to believe that he was such a man.

In writing his “Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada from the MSS. of Fray Antonio Agapida,” Irving recurred to a device which he had already employed with success. Fray Antonio is no less mythical than the “small elderly gentleman, dressed in an old black coat and cocked hat, by the name of Knickerbocker,” who was supposed to have left behind him, in his rooms at the Independent Columbian Hotel, that “very curious kind of a written book in his own handwriting” which, being presently printed “to pay off the bill for his board and lodging,” brought to its real author his first popularity. Nor can the “Granada” lay much stronger claim to be considered authentic history than Irving’s burlesque account of New York “from the beginning of the world to the end of the Dutch dynasty.” It is not, of course, predominantly humorous; but it is, in reality, merely a historical romance, adorned with bits from old chroniclers. In it Irving gave his imagination loose rein; and for that reason it is the most readable of his Spanish books.

His writings upon American history are less sympathetic. The matter of “Captain Bonneville” was fine in its facts, but it contained too little of the last to stimulate Irving’s romantic imagination, and it remained cold and almost crude under his shaping hand. In the founding of the settlement by which a butcher’s boy from Waldorf hoped to seize the mighty river of the West, there was also the stuff “of Romance,” and Irving’s “Astoria, or Anecdotes of Enterprise beyond the Rocky Mountains,” should transport the reader to

the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound
Save his own dashings.

In fact it continually brings his mind back to the ledgers of a too prosperous counting-house. Into the “Life of Washington” Irving was never able to put his heart. The book was the task-work of his declining years. It was undertaken at the suggestion of enterprising publishers, to whom he listened the more readily because the number of those dependent upon him had increased as the income from his earlier works declined. Its composition dragged from the outset. When at length the volumes appeared, they achieved a pronounced succès d’estime; but the work shows neither the firm grip of its subject nor the sustained vigour of treatment which might rank it among great biographies. It is rather a history of the United States during the latter half of the eighteenth century. There are entertaining anecdotes in it, vivid descriptions of battles, and sturdy American feeling. But of Washington himself there is only a pale shadow.

Irving’s position in American historiography is a peculiar one. He was not primarily a historian. In a sense he stands outside the main currents of our historical writing. Nevertheless, he had a strong influence in determining their course. His “Knickerbocker History of New York,” essentially a work of humour, was taken seriously by various of his fellow-townsmen, who were thus incited, much to Irving’s amusement, to undertake extensive studies in local history for the purpose of clearing their Dutch progenitors from his ridicule. He was the earliest among American men of letters to choose historical subjects for the exercise of his craft, and thus became the founder of the “picturesque school” of American historians, in which Prescott, Motley, and Parkman are his followers. And he was the first to feel the fascination which the power of Spain, in the Old World and in the New, has not ceased to exercise upon American writers of history ever since.